Opioids provide patients with meaningful beneficial effects, however, often patients also experience adverse effects from those same opioids. For example, opioids are useful as moderate to strong analgesic agents, but often cause other pharmacological side effects as well, such as drowsiness, respiratory depression, euphoria, nausea, dizziness, vomiting, pruritis and changes in mood. Such adverse effects can result in a patient's noncompliance, including discontinuation of therapy or missed doses.
There have been previous attempts in the art to increase the tamper resistance and patient acceptance of opioids. For example, controlled release dosage forms have been developed that release an active ingredient over many hours.
There remains a need in the art for improved dosage forms for administering opioids that can reduce adverse effects, and thus can potentially increase patient acceptance and abuse resistance.
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